Teachers being taught to fight back against gunmen

Manoj Mahindrakar, front left, assistant principal at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, speaks with Officer Rosa Ponce de Leon, a member of the Santa Ana Police Department and of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit, as they tour the school grounds at Aliso Niguel High School during a training session with Orange County Sheriff Department school resource officers to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday morning. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Safety improvements

In addition to the big changes it has made to its shooter response plan, Capistrano Unified School District is beefing up security.

• Devices have been installed in every classroom allowing doors to remain locked but ajar. In a lockdown scenario, the locked door can be easily closed.

• Buildings at three high schools have been labeled to help law enforcement navigate campuses. Other campuses will be similarly labeled when resources are available.

Fluorescent identification badges are required for all visitors.

• The district is considering placing lockdown kits in every classroom at an estimated cost of about $275,000. Kits would include water, toiletries, flashlights and food and would cost about $110 each.

Source: Capistrano Unified School District

By the numbers: Shootings

In a recent report prompted by the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., researchers at the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training center at Texas State University found there were 84 active shooter events across the country from 2000 to 2010. Based on law enforcement agency reports obtained through freedom of information requests, their research also found:

• 37 percent of the attacks were at businesses, 34 percent were at schools and 17 percent were at outdoor public venues, 12 percent were at other venues

• In 4 percent of the cases, gunmen wore body armor

• 60 percent of weapons used were pistols, 27 percent were rifles and 10 percent were shotguns, 3 percent unknown

Columbine a turning point

Until the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University in 2007, the massacre at Columbine High School eight years earlier was the deadliest school shooting in United States history. Experts say the Columbine tragedy was a turning point for schools across the country.

It prompted them to implement basic, and sometimes extreme, security measures; to train everyone from reserve deputies to school resource officers on how to respond to a violent crises; and to practice passive lockdown drills focused on hiding in the dark and staying quiet.

Curt Lavarello, former head of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said that until the Columbine shooting, the vast majority of schools weren't doing lockdown drills. "It was very sparse and sporadic," he said. "There were school districts doing it, but it certainly wasn't the majority."

Gunsolley, the school resource officer at Laguna Hills High School, presented a run, hide, and fight plan to the district board in June.

"We are equipped with better weaponry, armor, tactics," he told the board. "The days of waiting for the SWAT team to show up are over."

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In a dramatic shift gaining traction in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, teachers and students in some of Orange County’s public schools are being told to take down gunmen.

If they can’t run away from the campus or hide, they are told, for example, to discharge a fire extinguisher in the gunman’s face. Use chairs, tables and books as weapons. Be aggressive.

Fighting back is a last resort that local school district and law enforcement officials say empowers faculty, who fear they will be helpless if a shooter tears into their classroom.

“Why would you just lie there, and just wait to – and I hate to use these words, because it’s not sensitive – and wait to be killed when there are so many other options out there?” said Sgt. Nancy Wilkey of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s juvenile services bureau. “If someone is trying to hurt you, why wouldn’t you fight for your life?”

From San Clemente to Seal Beach, new response plans based on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s run, hide, fight model are rolling out.

In Capistrano Unified School District, the second largest school district in the county, the protocols are spelled out in a new plan of “deny access, evade and engage.” The plan says the first priority is to take preventive measures, such as keeping classroom doors locked, followed by the tactics of running away, hiding, and fighting back.

The plan was developed by the district’s Safety and Pupil Services Executive Director Mike Beekman, a reserve sheriff’s deputy and former teacher. It was vetted by the Sheriff’s Department, which is promoting run, hide and fight-based plans in all of the campuses it serves, including those in Saddleback Valley Unified School District, at Foothill High School in Tustin, Villa Park High School in Villa Park, and at the schools the department serves in Yorba Linda.

“We are advising teachers to have open and real discussions about things that may happen in their classroom,” Wilkey said. “We’re telling them to look around and see what they can do to make the classroom safer. … And as a last resort, if someone came in, what could you use as weapons … against an intruder?”

Santa Ana Unified School District Police Department Lt. Mark Van Holt visited the Sandy Hook crime scene three days after the massacre to learn from the first responders. He returned promoting run, hide and fight because it encourages teachers and students to think about all of their options, he said.

“The classrooms where students where shot all faced out to the parking lot … (and) I realized how low the windows were,” Van Holt said. “We could have trained and taught teachers across the nation that it is OK to think of other options. They could have thrown a chair or a stapler and shattered the glass and let the kids run out.”

Though implementation of the run, hide, fight model is on the rise, it’s still not in wide use, said Ken Trump, who helms a school safety consulting firm and has authored several books on the topic.

Irvine Unified School District, for example, partners with the Irvine Police Department on a four-hour crisis response training session that empowers teachers to make decisions that “are in the best interest of their students’ and their own safety” – but does not instruct them to fight back, officials said.

“Our training is catered specially to schools,” Klug said. “Teachers do ask about fighting back … (but) that’s difficult to train for. A teacher’s decision to fight back would be based on a number of factors: the type of threat they are facing, the weapon involved and the students … their age and capabilities.”

Trump said the lockdown protocols that became commonplace after the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 – close curtains and blinds, silence cellphones, try to make it appear as if no one is in the classroom – have worked well, and he argues that teachers and students often are not trained well enough to take down a gunman safely. Confronting a shooter is only likely to harm the children and teachers, he said.

Related Links

Manoj Mahindrakar, front left, assistant principal at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, speaks with Officer Rosa Ponce de Leon, a member of the Santa Ana Police Department and of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit, as they tour the school grounds at Aliso Niguel High School during a training session with Orange County Sheriff Department school resource officers to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday morning. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Christina Sepe, right, who teaches Spanish 2 and 3 at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, talks about how she locks her classroom door and would fight back at an intruder, with members of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit and Orange County Sheriff Department school resource officers from Saddleback Valley and Capistrano Unified School Districts as they gather in her classroom following their tour the school grounds during a training session to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday morning. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Sue Royal, a math teacher at Aliso Viejo Middle School, sits in her classroom just before the start of school Wednesday morning. Royal attended a training course during Capistrano Unified School District's staff-development sessions on how to deal with a threatening situation at a school which includes running-away and fighting-back. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Members of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit and Orange County Sheriff Department school resource officers from Saddleback Valley and Capistrano Unified School Districts sit in a classroom and go over various issues at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo following their tour of the school grounds during a training session to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday morning. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Sergeant Nancy Wilkey of the Orange County Sheriff Department's Juvenile Services Bureau, speaks with a school resource officer as they gather for a training session to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Captain Mike Morganstern, front center, of the Orange County Fire Authority and a member of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit speaks with Orange County Sheriff Department school resource officers from Saddleback Valley and Capistrano Unified School Districts as they gather for a training session to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo. In front of them is an aerial map of Aliso Niguel High School and the surrounding area. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Manoj Mahindrakar, right, assistant principal at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, speaks with Tom Maxwell, center, the school resource officer from the Orange County Sheriff Department along with Officer Rosa Ponce de Leon, left, a member of the Santa Ana Police Department and of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit, as they tour the school grounds at Aliso Niguel High School during a training session with Orange County Sheriff Department school resource officers to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday morning. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Captain Mike Morganstern, back center, of the Orange County Fire Authority and a member of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Unit, goes over an aerial map of the school and surrounding area as he speaks with Orange County Sheriff Department school resource officers from Saddleback Valley and Capistrano Unified School Districts while they gather for a training session to go over emergency response plans for schools Wednesday at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
An aerial view shows students being led from Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. on April 20,1999. Two young men, later identified as Eric Davis Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold, opened fire at the suburban Denver high school, killing 12 fellow students and one teacher before killing themselves. RODOLFO GONZALES, AP
Sue Royal, a math teacher at Aliso Viejo Middle School, stands by an exit near her classroom just before the start of school Wednesday morning. Royal attended a training course during Capistrano Unified School District's staff-development sessions on how to deal with a threatening situation at a school which includes running-away and fighting-back. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Lt. Mark Van Holt of the Santa Ana Unified School District Police Department sits in the dispatch room in Santa Ana which monitors video cameras mounted at schools around the city. Van Holt traveled to Newtown, Connecticut, three days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to learn from the first responders. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Lt. Mark Van Holt of the Santa Ana Unified School District Police Department. Van Holt traveled to Newtown, Connecticut, three days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to learn from the first responders. MARK RIGHTMIRE, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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